26.5.11

Last weekend I went shopping for food for The Boys. At the checkout, the clerk looked at my many, many cans and said, "please tell me you have multiple cats." I thought of saying, "no, I just hate shopping for cat food; this will last me several months," but instead I confirmed that yes, I did have multiple cats and the food was merely one month's worth.

Then Tuesday the repair guy came to fix my Internet connection (I had no service for - gasp! - over a week). He came into the house several times, and finally confirmed that someone had cut through my line on the outside. As we were trying to get the modem back on-line he asked, a little hesitantly, "why do you have so many books in your house?" I told him I was a school librarian. He then asked - incredulously - "you mean you've read them all?"

Clearly what I think of as normal life is not anyone else's idea of normal...

13.5.11

This one's been bugging me for a while, and virtually every week I say "you must blog this" but, well, it's taken nearly two years to get blogged.

For the past couple of years I've been avoiding major routes on my commute. Technically it's a shorter route, but because these are more rural roadways the speed is less than other roads. I don't mind, actually, because it's a pretty drive. But there's this one intersection that has me completely baffled. On my way to work it's fine, but on my way home, between 4 and 6pm, it's, well, like no stoplight I've ever seen.

At virtually every other stoplight on this drive the flow of traffic is normal: when the light is red, we stop and when it's green, we go. Sometimes if there's a lot of traffic it may take more than one light to get through, but the pattern is still the same. But at this stoplight, when it's red we actually move further than when it's green. Often green is a signal for us to - believe it or not - stop. And then the light turns green and we slowly move forward.

The lights are the correct colors. The red light is on top, yellow in the middle, and green at the bottom. Yes, there's a left turn light, but this isn't the only light with one.

4.5.11

One of the things I love about MPOW is that we have full breakfast every day. There's a Group of 7 of us who gather at 7am for breakfast and conversation, enjoying an hour of jokes and discussion (it's a rare day that doesn't include the Coffee Comment, and often there's a Muffin Moment as well). Topics include colleagues, students, the arts, tv, books, politics, religion, current events - the usual gamut of conversation amongst friends. There are five men and two women, one of them me.

Last Monday we were, as usual, catching up on our weekend's doings when the other woman turned to me - "[Lazygal], did you watch last night?" Of course I had, and we were off discussing how the team had not pulled together, particularly after Pierce got ejected, whether Ray Allen could hit enough 3-pointers, blah blah blah. Two of the men looked confused until we clarified that it was the Celtics/Heat game, part of the NBA playoffs. You see, sports is virtually the only topic we don't cover (one other person allows as how he follows tennis and will update us on the fortunes of his favourite football team, Manchester City), except when she and I talk about the Red Sox, the Patriots or the Celtics (do you see a theme there? good)

Then yesterday, she again turned to me to ask when the game tonight was on. I looked through the NYTimes belonging to another tablemate to see. Just as he returned from a coffee refill I said "7pm, TNT" - and explained that it was a Celtics/Heat game, not some esoteric movie or show. Our response was a blank look.

I'm not sure that this is what Title IX was meant to do, but at least in my little corner of the breakfast world, the women are the ones who follow and talk about sports.